The difference between a job and a career is what you walk away with when it ends. Here’s how to evaluate if your role and environment are enabling capability building–and if your title is holding you back.
She was a Senior Director at a 60-person biotech. Employee 12. She helped build the Discovery team from the ground up. The CEO knew her name. She sat in the rooms that mattered.
Then the Series C fell through. The company shelved early research to extend runway. Her entire team was eliminated.
She thought she’d land quickly. Senior Director. Strong track record. Deep expertise.
Six months later, she’s still looking.
The title that felt earned at a 60-person company doesn’t translate at 300-person companies. The scope behind it was meaningful but narrow: expert in her domain but disconnected from cross-functional leadership, isolated from the conversations that set direction.
Her title expanded as the company grew around her. The scope didn’t. Now the market isn’t buying the title. It’s buying capability. She has the title. She doesn’t have the altitude.
The Bet You Didn’t Know You Were Making
Every time you stay in a role, you place a bet. Not on whether the company will succeed. You don’t control that. You’re betting on what you’ll walk away with when it’s over.
Most people focus on title, compensation, mission. They ask whether the work feels meaningful right now. What they don’t ask is this: Am I accumulating capability that translates, or am I just getting good at being here?
Am I accumulating capability that translates, or am I just getting good at being here?
Those aren’t the same thing. And in a market where programs get shelved between board meetings, the difference is everything. The dangerous part? It’s invisible while you’re in it. You’re contributing. You’re valued. The gap only becomes visible when you try to move.
What Different Environments Actually Build (And Starve)
You think you’re choosing a job. You’re choosing an environment. And environments shape people in predictable ways. Most biopharma roles fall into three types. Each builds something valuable. Each starves something critical.
Early-build biotechs (under 75 people) build speed and range. You make decisions with incomplete data and stretch across functions. But scalable systems and repeatable processes get starved. Stay too long, and chaos becomes a skill you didn’t mean to master, or the title becomes a credential you can’t defend.
Scaling companies (75-500 people, clinical-stage) build integrative judgment. You connect science, operations, and strategy. But altitude gets starved. As the company grows, you move further from the decisions you used to shape, even as your title suggests you’re moving up. Your world shrinks while the organization expands around you.
Established pharma (500+ employees, commercial-stage) builds rigor and systems thinking. Titles reflect genuine scope. A Director here manages what a VP manages at a 60-person biotech. But speed and autonomy get starved. You lose the instinct to act without consensus and start confusing process with progress.
Stay too long in any one environment, and what you’re losing starts to matter more than what you’re gaining.
What Are You Actually Building Toward?
Before you can know if you’re accumulating the right capabilities, you need to answer a harder question:
What kind of leader do you want to become?
Do you want to be the person who takes programs from discovery through approval? You need to move between early-stage chaos and late-stage rigor and know when each matters.
Do you want to be the strategic leader who shapes portfolio decisions? You need altitude and cross-functional credibility. That means you can’t stay siloed in one function or trapped in execution.
Do you want to be the operator who builds teams and infrastructure that scale? You need to see how systems form in real time and know what breaks when you grow too fast.
The capabilities you need depend on the problems you want to solve. And the environment you choose determines which capabilities you’ll build. Most people skip this question. Then they wake up five years later and realize they’ve become really good at something they don’t want to do.
What You Actually Control
You can’t control whether the company survives. Whether the program advances. Whether the next reorg includes your role.
But you can control whether what you’re building right now will matter when this chapter ends.
If you’re employed and wondering if you should stay:
Ask three questions this week:
- Can I build cross-functional credibility here, or am I stuck in my lane?
- Am I still learning things that would matter at a different company, or just learning how to navigate this one?
- If I described my scope to someone outside this company, would it match my title?
If the answers point to growth, stay and build deliberately. Volunteer for strategic projects. Get visible outside your function. Document what you’re learning, not just what you’re delivering.
If the environment won’t let you grow the scope, that’s your signal. The market won’t wait for you to realize the gap.
If you’re searching and struggling to land:
The framework still applies. You’re dealing with a mismatch between the title you carried and the scope the market will pay for.
In interviews, lead with capability, not title. Instead of “I was Senior Director of Discovery,” say “I built a Discovery team from 3 to 15 people and took two programs from target identification through IND-enabling studies. I know how to get results with limited resources.”
Don’t defend the title. Demonstrate the scope and show how it maps to their problems.
Don’t defend the title. Demonstrate the scope and show how it maps to their problems.
And when you evaluate new opportunities, even if you’re taking the only offer available, ask: What will this build into me? A tight market doesn’t mean you abandon strategy. It means you get clearer about what you’re trading and how you’ll position what you walk away with.
The signal isn’t time. It’s whether you’re still learning things that will matter somewhere else.
The Only Question That Matters
Before you accept the next role or decide to stay in this one, ask yourself:
If this job ended tomorrow, would the scope I’m building match the title I’m carrying? And would someone else pay for both?
If your title is Senior Director but your world has quietly narrowed to execution in one therapeutic area, you’re not accumulating strategic capability. You’re holding a label that won’t travel. The company will make decisions based on what it needs. The market will move in ways you can’t predict.
Your job is to make sure that when it does, and it will, you walk away with something that translates. Not just a title. Not just years of experience. Capability that compounds. Scope that travels. Altitude that’s real.
Stop optimizing your job. Start optimizing your career.
